After the battle, Crow and his recruits are sent to stand guard as the legion builds a new road leading north from London across the now completely depopulated lands of the Iceni.
General Paulinus, whose troops fought and destroyed the Britons, is obsessed with finding Boudicca, alive or dead, and swears to take her head as a trophy.
On the way to the land of the Iceni, Crow befriends a survivor of the Roman retribution. The woman, starved nearly to death, hides from the Romans. Crow feeds and cares for this survivor, whom he calls Ceres. She follows him into the Iceni land and then disappears when the Roman troops arrive to build a fort.
Crow’s squad is made up of tributes to Rome. One member of the squad, Dionysus, wants more than to ride with the Roman army. He spends his time making friends with Roman troops and finding ways to trade his way up from the cavalry. Dionysus’s chance comes when he meets General Paulinus and impresses Paulinus with a gift—a statue of Paulinus’s enemy, Boudicca.
Paulinus, in gratitude, promises Dionysus to help him get closer to the powerful people of this Roman colony. Dionysus finds himself assigned to light duty for the higher-ups in the headquarters near London. In comparison, the rest of the squad are run almost to death.
Crow realizes that his sympathies lie with the islanders, not the Romans, and leaves the army in search of Ceres. As his squad goes separate ways and learns to become soldiers, Crow seeks the woman he has helped in her home in a foreign land, giving up his career, his freedom, and, perhaps, his life.
